the infinity book review in the notices of the ams was the first time i ever heard of DFW!
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:21 (twelve years ago) link
ij > oblivion > biwhm > gwch > tpk > bots
imo
lobster over fun thing, also imo
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Tuesday, August 23, 2011 10:20 PM (Yesterday)
i agree with this exactly, except i'd take fun thing over lobster
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 24 August 2011 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
actually i'm not sure where i'd place TPK... parts of it are just as good as anything else, its just obviously very unfinished.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 24 August 2011 18:53 (twelve years ago) link
"i am told the authors of logicomix are jerks"
I don't know about jerks, but papa-D once wrote a softcore novel about alan turing with nirvana and rage against the machine lyrics spruced throughout.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 19:15 (twelve years ago) link
I'm glad someone wrote a response: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omer-rosen/david-foster-wallace_b_968257.html
Although I don't know if Newton would dispute that the DFW tropes/tics/tricks in question were both intentional and effective. Seemed like she was more concerned with DFW's pervasive influence, and I don't think the issues she's concerned with (bad blogging etc) can really be laid at his feet.
― hardcore oatmeal (Jordan), Thursday, 22 September 2011 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
The idea that a particular author, however widely read and admired, could be responsible for the stylistic ugliness of thousands of bloggers is nonsense. DFW's style was not hatched up parthenogenically, it's a style that pre-existed him in a million mouths and thousands of writings, but it was never so well-honed or controlled for artistic purposes before he made it so. It is no surprise that a gaggle of semi-talented bloggers would fail to rise to his level, but he bears no blame for that.
The only point of this idiotic controversy is to stir up a fuss and beg for attention. As criticism of DFW it is valueless.
― Aimless, Thursday, 22 September 2011 16:39 (twelve years ago) link
i was skimming that and i misread "free indirect discourse" as "free internet discourse"
wonder if i can use that somewhere
― thomp, Thursday, 22 September 2011 16:59 (twelve years ago) link
Free internet discourse always seems to have popup ads.
― Aimless, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:16 (twelve years ago) link
i was skimming this and then i saw this
Omer Rosen
Former derivatives banker, Freelance writer
and thought, wow they had to get some dude off the street to respond.
Reaching back, the psycho-kinetic redemption of rape victimhood in Wallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men became the grad-school Gossip Girl of John Krasinski's adaptation.
huh?
For example, to present Wallace as a 'stoned slacker' (to use Bill O'Reilly's terminology), at even the linguistic level, is a misreading.
why are we using Bill O'Reilly as an example of a dude who understands DFW?
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:31 (twelve years ago) link
or maybe i forgot all of Bill O'Reilly's contributions to the New York Review of Books--does someone have a link?
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:33 (twelve years ago) link
The overall point missing is how Wallace mastered the art of bridging academic sophistry with the innately human: e.g. combining a Wittgensteinian notion of addiction not existing beyond an addict's ability to articulate it with the more immediate philosophy of gotta-have-nonpresent-drugz-in-an-ever-fuckuppable-intensity.
He was, as appears to be the too-obvious definition that seems to cow reviewers by its obviousness, the true crafter of a postmodern 'sincerity' -- a seemingly impossible task in the wake of Pynchon and the psychosexual slapstick of characters like "Oedipa Maas" and "Tyrone Slothrop."
oh okay, so Pynchon wrote a bunch of psychosexual slapstick using characters with funny names and this caused every writer afterward to not be able to write sincere. Gotcha.
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
Granted, Rosen writes like crap and is not very cogent or incisive. (shrugs) The whole argument Newton started is stupid, so I suppose it acted a clarion call to others of the same quality of mind.
― Aimless, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
and yet her stupid argument was published in the New York Times and it took two dudes to write this for the Huffington Post.
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:45 (twelve years ago) link
The NYT is no pinnacle of intellectual excellence. For example, they also publish David Brooks and Tom Friedman.
― Aimless, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:49 (twelve years ago) link
i agree, both those dudes are odious, but that's guilt by association
― Mr. Que, Thursday, 22 September 2011 17:50 (twelve years ago) link
I was under the impression you were casting a reflected glory on Newton's piece, by her association with the NYT. I was merely pointing out that the NYT's glory, such as it is, is not especially luminous.
I am willing to say her essay is not odious because of any association it may have with Brooks and Friedman, but it may be deemed so purely on merit.
― Aimless, Thursday, 22 September 2011 20:26 (twelve years ago) link
I went to his office hours the next afternoon. When I apologized for the typos, he pointed at me and said, “Never fail to proofread something you turn in to me,” to which I nodded as convincingly as I could. He worried that he hadn’t gotten through to me, and, confused, he asked, “I mean, did you cry?” “Yes.” “Good. I would’ve cried.”
http://nplusonemag.com/king-of-the-ghosts
― honest weights, square dealings (schlump), Sunday, 9 October 2011 16:36 (twelve years ago) link
i am still reading this but:it is hard to read one of these things, being at least a little conscious that it might be trampling into 'DFW STUDENT SPILLS BEANS' territory, without feeling a kneejerk probably unearned sensation of wanting to disagree with whatever the author's suggesting, on account of the article's poor etiquette.
the book/speech parts seem maybe ill-advised
― honest weights, square dealings (schlump), Sunday, 9 October 2011 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
tbf compared to what j. franzen got up to this week that's not really a thing
― thomp, Sunday, 9 October 2011 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
this feels unfairly brief, actually, because the guy is really engaging -- just that both in speculating on alternative courses of the guy's life & alternative endings for his novel he's obviously in a pretty weird area. some of the christian-stuff is interesting.
it does remind you of that idea of tutor-wallace raised by the student's marked-up essay paper, though, just a deeply responsible & engaged resource for young people.
― honest weights, square dealings (schlump), Sunday, 9 October 2011 17:27 (twelve years ago) link
& sure, xp, that seemed a weird thing to have been raised sorta unqualified
― honest weights, square dealings (schlump), Sunday, 9 October 2011 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
― thomp, Sunday, October 9, 2011 12:20 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark
??
― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Sunday, 9 October 2011 20:58 (twelve years ago) link
he made a fairly forced segue from something he was asked about at the new yorker festival to imply that wallace's non-fiction pieces were dubious, ethically, in that they fudged the lines between 'non-fiction': specific assertion being made-up dialogue in the cruise ship piece
it's not a big deal anywhere outside of tumblr, really; it's just another annoying public development in franzen's continuing relationship with his friend's corpse
― thomp, Sunday, 9 October 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
ah ok
man i just read "this is water" again and maybe i am just a big ol baby but it sorta felt like church
― i love pinfold cricket (gbx), Sunday, 9 October 2011 21:16 (twelve years ago) link
^ just read that this afternoon too (maybe to the end for the first time?). I miss DFW.
― ,(.__.)/ (silby), Sunday, 9 October 2011 21:37 (twelve years ago) link
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/jeffrey-eugenides-2011-10/index3.html
― hardcore oatmeal (Jordan), Tuesday, 11 October 2011 00:51 (twelve years ago) link
cool article
― calstars, Tuesday, 11 October 2011 01:32 (twelve years ago) link
Franzen's still a dick
http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/a-supposedly-true-thing-jonathan-franzen-said-about-david-foster-wallace#more
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 11 October 2011 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
eh he's telling tales out of school but i mean they were friends at the time it was being written so i take it he has some inside knowledge and doesn't think he's sharing some dark secret to discredit the guy -- it's not like i ever imagined dude recording/transcribing real conversations verbatim for most of his essays
― some dude, Wednesday, 12 October 2011 00:59 (twelve years ago) link
this is awesome.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Friday, 28 October 2011 23:58 (twelve years ago) link
I love him.
― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:06 (twelve years ago) link
XD
― markers, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:06 (twelve years ago) link
my god i can't even begin to think what his more passive-aggressive moments are like
& so i'm about 250 pages into IJ after what seems like 3 weeks (!!!) and i love it to shit, but man is it laborious. i'm used to reading 1-3 books a week and having drawn all my attention this this is kinda excruciating, especially with the xtra-xtra-small font and the liberal paragraph breaks once every 43 pages. how long did it take other ilxians?
― kelpolaris, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:11 (twelve years ago) link
looking through the pages strongo just linked you should be grateful that the type in IJ isn't as ridiculoulsy tiny as his handwriting. he was a big guy, no? how could he even write that small?
― jed_, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:18 (twelve years ago) link
the skull and bones omg
― occupy the A train (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:21 (twelve years ago) link
Took me 11 months. Finished it during a 7 hour bus ride.
― whoop, up the butt it goes (silby), Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:24 (twelve years ago) link
over like a summer i think the 1st time i read it
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:25 (twelve years ago) link
I finished IJ in roughly six weeks, although I did not read every bit of the footnotes. I started it just before New Year's Day, so I had plenty of dark quite evening hours for reading. I finished it about a week into February.
― Aimless, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:30 (twelve years ago) link
<3 his american heritage ballot submissions. how does one get on the list?
― dayo, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:36 (twelve years ago) link
― occupy the A train (difficult listening hour), Friday, October 28, 2011 8:21 PM (15 minutes ago)
^^^ seriously
― MODS DID 10/11 (k3vin k.), Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:37 (twelve years ago) link
gratified to know even DFW memorized vocabulary words. need to get my own list up and running.
― dayo, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:48 (twelve years ago) link
american heritage usage panel is mostly well-known writers and academics. they're listed at the front of the dictionary.
― circles, Saturday, 29 October 2011 00:53 (twelve years ago) link
everybody stop looking at that flickr account before you get to the autopsy report. ugh.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Saturday, 29 October 2011 01:04 (twelve years ago) link
cosign^^^
― elan, Saturday, 29 October 2011 01:07 (twelve years ago) link
IJ took me fur years to read. I gave up on it about three times, maybe four. Yet something made me go back each time. I'm glad I read it but four years is completely ridiculous for one book.
― tubby permacrocked whorefucker (Lostandfound), Saturday, 29 October 2011 01:43 (twelve years ago) link
*four
hfc! (holy fucking christ!)
half of it taking me such an incredibly long time is that i can never really start where my bookmark sits and remember exactly what's going on, necessitating a skimming of the previous page, then a full-on reading, then a backtrack 3 pages back, and then a sudden realization that i never actually absorbed any of this information in the first place
which makes it sound like DFW's writing causes ones mind to meander which - yeah - it does but never really warrants it. i thoroughly enjoy each page i have to regress upon... i just wish i wasn't always doing it.
― chaningning tatumtum (kelpolaris), Saturday, 29 October 2011 02:15 (twelve years ago) link
I don't remember how long it took me. Several months. There was some period of weeks where I put it down and read something else and then went back to it. Just needed the break.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Saturday, 29 October 2011 02:40 (twelve years ago) link
Also, 2 months here. One of the most engaging books I've read – I just want to put in a "you should read this, it's not that hard" vote.
― elan, Saturday, 29 October 2011 03:04 (twelve years ago) link
i've read it at different rates. first time in college (maybe two or three years after it was first released, after i'd been turned onto him via the release of supposedly fun thing) was a bit of a slogging-it-out deal, and so when i finished it my reaction was somewhere between awe (what the hell was that?) and resentment (that's it?). (in my defense i was like 20 or 21 and hadn't exactly delved into world literature yet. unresolved narratives were still something of a shock/let-down.) second time i read it in like two or three weeks, but i was unemployed, snowed-in for large chunks of the time, and hardly doing anything else all day. third time took about two and a half months, where i struggled through the all the bits everyone usually struggles through and sprinted through the last 1/4th or so (the don g epiphanies) in a couple days.
it all kind depends on a.) your available free time and b.) the mindset you bring to it. like any long, involved novel, really.
― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Saturday, 29 October 2011 03:49 (twelve years ago) link